Apple desperate to prevent nightmare scenario of iPad in Iranian hands An Apple Store in the US state of Georgia refused to sell an iPad to an American teenager because she spoke the Iranian language Farsi in the store. A student in the nearby city of Atlanta was also banned from buying an iPhone for the same reason, according to a report by local TV channel WSBTV. "I just can't sell this to you …
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Ahem, chill pill needed by others too.
1) "Only in USA" is not the same as "All Americans". While being an important center of cultural and scientific progress, it's also the promised land of extreme nutjobs and bigots.
2) You can't deny the US has a recent history of security hysteria, Americans themselves being its biggest critics. Do I need to point you to "Security Theater", tazings, flight blacklists etc. ad nauseam?
State-run website Cubadebate reports that attempts to access Google Analytics direct people to the US Treasury Department Office of Foreign Asset Control website. Cubadebate also slams the move as "outrageous censorship," criticizing Google for blocking Analytics in addition to previous blocks on other tools like Google Earth, Google Toolbar, Google Desktop, and Google Code Search.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/21/3105443/google-analytics-blocked-cuba-us-sanctions
>Only in the US of A.
Yeah unfortunately not only were we stupid enough to not let the South US walk away like we should have in the mid 1800s (whats another 3rd world country to the south?) but we even gave them back the right to vote even after they committed the ultimate form of high treason. Even today many in the region care more about controlling the behavior of others than doing whats right for the country.
Funny.
I had a quick look around and according to her:
"She called customer relations, received an apology, and bought the iPad online."
So Apple's sorted it out the way it should and is now left with a PR disaster caused by two imbeciles. Better than the response she would have received from Jobs - "you're speaking the words wrong".
But this was in the USA and the US Treasury enforces conditions like that for individuals - even those resident in the USA - if it's suspected the purchase may end up being exported to a Iran or Syria.
There's a lot of regulation concerning that see the page below for details:
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Pages/iran.aspx
For example a recent presidential order, signed by Mr Obama himself:
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/fse_eo.pdf
I'm not saying that staff were correct, but not saying they were wrong either. I think only the US Treasury and OFAC will be able to provide an answer. Maybe Ms Leach could ask them?
Is speaking a foreign language prima facie evidence of intent to export the device to a foreign country? If she had stood in the store and said "This will be great back in Tehran" then they might have had some justification for declining to sell under export restrictions but to do so merely as a result of using a foreign language is ridiculous.
Stupid. Ignorant. Dumb as all fuck.
Mind you, the whole US export prohibitions are a farce anyway...
Anyone could buy a suitcase full of them and just drive across the border.
It's even worse that these are the very countries that the American corporate cartels are exporting "Peace and Democracy to the middle east" - with weapons, CIA plants, political and social destabilisation, and installing armies of occupation in...
Then they say, "These countries are the (enemy) acting against US interests, by resisting being declared war on - for their oil.... and the toppling of their own popularly elected governments.
Moron shop staff and moronically evil sanctions.
Based on "one incident by a redneck" where it's actually two incidents in two separate stores, and involving at least three Apple employees.
If it really was just "one incident by a redneck" then that would suggest a stupid "Genius" - but that it's more than one incident in more than one store suggests the problem is higher up the chain. It might not be Apple's actual policy, but it's certainly a problem somewhere in Apple.
Atlanta is pretty cosmopolitan thus the students with international backgrounds living there.
Very weird making stores the gatekeepers though. That's what customs officials are for: person has electronic equipment with them? check boarding cards and massive database and follow instructions.
Not only the USA have export restrictions to a number of countries.
I don't know where you live, but try to ship a computer from there to Iran and see how that goes. Your local authorities will most probably become quite anal about it (literally as well) or have you move up a couple on pages on their watch list for quite some time (hence the Big Brother icon).
Don't forget that most of Iranian nuclear technology came from (illegal) exports from the Netherlands, while a lot of current tech leaders were trained in the USA (before 1979) and France ....
Read the report.
The young lady said "The iPad was to be a gift for her cousin who lives in Iran." So it was to be exported - contrary to current Administration thinking "A representative for the U.S. State Department told Viteri it is illegal to travel to Iran with laptops or satellite cellphones without U.S. authorization"
That's not to say one could be successfully exported via another country.........Doh!
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